[scorpiodsu]

The problem with this post is the OP is trying to act like they are sincerely looking for RIM to provide updates while at the same time insulting those that are asking for the updates. Has a real facetious tone. It's like they are trying to insult you while at the same time act like they are on your side. The point is, RIM still hasn't given everything needed to make this the "first professional grade tablet" and anyone spending their hard earned money can call RIM out as much as they like. It's funny the amount of people around here whining about the whiners.

[FMB8900]

I have to imagine that this topic came up when Kevin made his pilgrimage to Waterloo. Kevin is keeping everything that he learned to himself.

yeah, what happend to the buttload of blog posts about the RIMcation Kevin took??

[SlcCorrado]

yeah, what happend to the buttload of blog posts about the RIMcation Kevin took??

Probably didn't like what he heard... Haha

[kb5zht]

What RIM promised they have delivered. The Promise was that these features you want/expect will be available this summer. Summer is not over, yet. And just in case you may be referring to the "promise" of 60 day native email, the words "promise" were never said by RIM's co-CEO's.

No the word used was scheduled.

Get into an argument with semantics if you like..is a promise better than a schedule? But below a pinky promise? How about a double-dog promise? Oh but he didnt inhale right?

Okay enough of that he said what he did and its on record.


Now, i ask you, how do you define summer? It is almost august now. A calender summer? fiscal summer? and will it be enough time to formulate another excuse for them? Hey how about this little fact. In the ninety-some-odd days this device has been out, two major features have been added... video chat and bbm. I will forgo the argument that they arent finished.

That is a new feature every 45 days. All we have is that record to go on. Are you prepared to face reality that in no what will all features u referred to be added by the end of summer, however you define it? One every forty five days- thats a month and a half for the intellectually challenged.

You really expect rim to suddenly get their act together and even finish the bridge functions in that time?

Really?!?!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[TBone4eva]

I never said summer was over, nor did I say RIM failed to deliver. Why are you trying to make it seem like we're wrong for wanting these features at the BEGINNING or MIDDLE of the summer? Just because summer isn't over yet, doesn't mean that they have to be delivered at the end. RIM has a track record of being tardy- we all know this. "Summer" can turn into "Christmas", which can easily turn into "Valentine's Day".

Also, maybe you should lookup the definition of "promise". A person doesn't have to say the word "promise" verbally to relay the message. I'm sure you didn't verbally tell your bank "I promise to make my mortgage/car payments", or your children "I promise to always protect you". (if you have children, that is. if not, I'm sure you get my point). Point is, it's perfectly ok for them to assume, just like it's perfectly ok for US to assume that when the highest ranking officers of a corporation (that each of us dish out thousands of dollars toward) say something is going to get done, it will get done.



RIM declared, in an effort to assure its customers that the PlayBook was a worthwhile investment, to deliver on certain features. Well...we paid for our PlayBooks 3 months ago and now we'd like said features. Why is that so CRAZY of us?

Are you really trying to equate signed contracts and paternal bonds with a CEO saying he believed native email was scheduled to be delivered in 60 days? Really?

As for whether you are crazy to ask for features that have been promoted, no not really. In fact I can't really blame you for demanding what you believe you paid for. What is crazy is people coming on here and complaining about the same thing at every opportunity like it's going to make a difference THIS time when it didn't the last time.

We all were a little naive because the PB launch was late even though at every demo event they kept saying Q1. Even in March, when there were clear signs the PB wasn't ready, they kept saying Q1, yet we bought it anyway. The reviews came out before launch day and were poor, even Kevin's review was lukewarm and yet we bought it anyway. We all had time to play with it and determine if it met our needs and return it, yet we are still holding on to it. RIM says they are working on the features we want and they are planning to have it out sometime this summer. Nothing we do on this forum is going to change anything. RIM is either going to come through and be forgiven or they will forever leave a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths and this is the beginning of the end.

[tstrike34]

No I don't work for RIM. I do contracting for the Federal Government and have been dealing with the requirement of FIPS approval, and the agony of waiting for it for many devices (not smartphones though) for a while. I'm waiting on other devices to get approval now and can't deploy them until they are approved.

I am a part time Defense contractor and a former Intelligence professional.

lnichols makes a lot of sense given that BB is the platform of choice for not only the Federal government, but for the Big 8 Defense contracting firms.

FIPS compliance and NIST approval takes for freaking ever.

[kirson]

The problem with this post is the OP is trying to act like they are sincerely looking for RIM to provide updates while at the same time insulting that are asking for the updates. Has a real facetious tone. It's like they are trying to insult you while at the same time act like they are on your side. The point is, RIM still haven't given everything needed to make this the "first professional grade tablet" and anyone spending their hard earned money can call RIM out as much as they like. It's funny the amount of people around here whining about the whiners.

It's actually not funny - it's really sad, and quite disturbing. There are a lot of people, many die-hard RIM supporters among them, that have serious complaints about the PlayBook. We all want to see it succeed, and we all look forward for the updates. Both the big and the small updates. There are lots of reasons to be frustrated with the progress RIM has been making. And there are plenty of arguments and explanations about how we got to this point. I share the desire of many to at least have RIM communicate with us about what's going on. All that being said, these forums are EXACTLY the right arena for these discussions to take place and for these issues to be brought up. The immediate "whiners" commentary that comes up every time someone raises an issue is insulting and unwarranted. It is undermining the legitimacy of these forums as open dialog about the issues we care about and it is taking a lot of the fun out of this.

[straightshooter]

Are you really trying to equate signed contracts and paternal bonds with a CEO saying he believed native email was scheduled to be delivered in 60 days? Really?

As for whether you are crazy to ask for features that have been promoted, no not really. In fact I can't really blame you for demanding what you believe you paid for. What is crazy is people coming on here and complaining about the same thing at every opportunity like it's going to make a difference THIS time when it didn't the last time.

We all were a little naive because the PB launch was late even though at every demo event they kept saying Q1. Even in March, when there were clear signs the PB wasn't ready, they kept saying Q1, yet we bought it anyway. The reviews came out before launch day and were poor, even Kevin's review was lukewarm and yet we bought it anyway. We all had time to play with it and determine if it met our needs and return it, yet we are still holding on to it. RIM says they are working on the features we want and they are planning to have it out sometime this summer. Nothing we do on this forum is going to change anything. RIM is either going to come through and be forgiven or they will forever leave a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths and this is the beginning of the end.

I agree with you completely on what you are saying, but I'd like to add a few things.

1. The CEO of a company saying that he believes that a feature is going to be available within 60 days is something that should either be true, or he shouldn't have said it at all. If the CEO of a major corporation doesn't know what's going on and when things are going to be done for one of their biggest product launces ever, there is a MUCH bigger problem with RIM.

2. Adds to the first point: When everyone purchased their Playbook's, even though there are return terms in stores, most of them are 14 days for electronics. We all put our faith in RIM on this that they would be able to deliver within said 60 days and were pretty much ignoring the return times, because RIM's projections for releases were well beyond when we could still return the device.

So it's now been 90 days, returns are out the window of possibility and all we can do is hope that RIM comes through. I can only speak for myself, but my confidence in this is not high at all.

[pkcable]

No the word used was scheduled.

Get into an argument with semantics if you like..is a promise better than a schedule? But below a pinky promise? How about a double-dog promise? Oh but he didnt inhale right?

Okay enough of that he said what he did and its on record.


Now, i ask you, how do you define summer? It is almost august now. A calender summer? fiscal summer? and will it be enough time to formulate another excuse for them? Hey how about this little fact. In the ninety-some-odd days this device has been out, two major features have been added... video chat and bbm. I will forgo the argument that they arent finished.

That is a new feature every 45 days. All we have is that record to go on. Are you prepared to face reality that in no what will all features u referred to be added by the end of summer, however you define it? One every forty five days- thats a month and a half for the intellectually challenged.

You really expect rim to suddenly get their act together and even finish the bridge functions in that time?

Really?!?!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Promised, or scheduled, does it really matter? It's not so much that he was wrong, it's that he denied saying it. He had such a great opportunity to explain how he should not have given a time frame and that he was mistaken, and instead he just pretends that he never said it, and tries to deflect the question. What happened was he's the marketing side, NOT the tech side (Mike L is tech) and he had NO business even throwing out a number, and he pulled a number out of his you know WHAT! Take you medicine Jim, you made a mistake, it's ok, we still love you, just don't lie to us! You said it, it's on tape for Christ sake!

[action]steps off soap box[/action]

[kb5zht]

I agree with you completely on what you are saying, but I'd like to add a few things.

1. The CEO of a company saying that he believes that a feature is going to be available within 60 days is something that should either be true, or he shouldn't have said it at all. If the CEO of a major corporation doesn't know what's going on and when things are going to be done for one of their biggest product launces ever, there is a MUCH bigger problem with RIM.

2. Adds to the first point: When everyone purchased their Playbook's, even though there are return terms in stores, most of them are 14 days for electronics. We all put our faith in RIM on this that they would be able to deliver within said 60 days and were pretty much ignoring the return times, because RIM's projections for releases were well beyond when we could still return the device.

So it's now been 90 days, returns are out the window of possibility and all we can do is hope that RIM comes through. I can only speak for myself, but my confidence in this is not high at all.

I agree but would like to add something else here.

What is in question here is integrity. The value of a person's word is strongly tied to a public or group's opinion of the individual's character and ability to lead.

Rim's stock price is lower than ever and the lowest in it's industry sector. Why? If their profits are so good and their customer base is growing like rim's staunch defenders are so quick to claim, why is wall street beating down their value of rim?

Answer; stock price is based on wall street's perception of a company's future earnings... and what is key? The competence of the company's leadership.

They whole tech world just sat and watched one of rim's two leaders first lie about what is clearly on record, then watched him squirm and crawfish out of it. If you think the investment community and the reviewers and therefore future potentialcustomers do not somehow get affected by this you are crazy.

Who is as likely to sign large contracts with a company if they feel they cannot trust it? Arent potential customers likely to be turned off if they read in a magazine that the company has a history of lying to get the consumer's money?

Why do people think that enormous embarrassing event happened in a vacuum?

It didnt, and there will be a price to pay. Admit a mistake and come clean and you will buy a lot of public trust. Lie and insult the consumer's intelligence.... well...

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[peter9477]

So apparently everyone whining about what Jim said, didn't say, promised or didn't promise, and maybe denied, has little imagination, not to mention likely little experience developing technology.

He said roughly, and more or less in passing, that email was "60-days scheduled". Ignoring the bizarre wording (normal people would say "scheduled for 60 days" or something), what could that have meant?

1. His team told him they expected to deliver around then. No lying involved, at least on his part.

2. The next day, the schedule was changed based on some factors we obviously don't know about. Still no lying involved.

3. They were on track to meet the schedule, but in the meantime priorities changed, or unforeseen difficulties arose, and the schedule had to be changed.

4. They met the schedule, internally, but some other issues prevented them from releasing so far. Maybe marketing reconsidered releasing without some key feature, or the security certification stuff went slower than expected and is holding it up, or ? Still no lying involved.

So, there's at least a few ways he didn't "lie" when he said that.

The denial? A bit surprising, but maybe he thinks his memory is better than it obviously is. Yes, he mentioned "60 days" and "email" together, and people took it as anything from a likelihood to a promise. Yes, he said he hadn't said it, then said if he did he must have said 60-90 days. Lack of integrity? Lying? Not necessarily... what about bad memory, and some poor judgement thrown in for good measure?

As for not holding people accountable for what they said, given some combination of the above scenarios I can totally understand where that comment might have been coming from. I wouldn't want to be held accountable for saying more than I had really said, or meant to say.

Not the most professional or competent-looking behaviour from a CEO, agreed. But really, without knowing more about the real story, which you probably never will, calling someone's integrity into question over this is just over the top. Move on already...

[312]

Are you really trying to equate signed contracts and paternal bonds with a CEO saying he believed native email was scheduled to be delivered in 60 days? Really?

Yes, really.

What is crazy is people coming on here and complaining about the same thing at every opportunity like it's going to make a difference THIS time when it didn't the last time.

Well, that's sort of what a forum is for- to be heard................

[trsbbs]

Dear RIM,

I'm sick and tired of all the whining here on Crackberry about wanting updates, then when you provide them people whining that it isn't enough. I know that the Crypto Kernel for the Tablet OS is almost approved and that not having it approved is probably holding up some key features for the Playbook. Will you please address the Crackberry community and let them know what features are on hold until you have the FIPS 140-2 certificate issued by NIST in hand? This will not only go a long way to actually communicating with people who adopted the Playbook expecting these features to be available, but it will provide education to others about why some of these certifications are important to you as a company and your products. Not communicating with the public and customers just lets them criticize you and your products with their own misguided assumptions.

You may be right. The quality OS update they put out today and then pulled today should do much to further shore up peoples faith in RIM.

sigh....

Tim

[312]

So apparently everyone whining about what Jim said, didn't say, promised or didn't promise, and maybe denied, has little imagination, not to mention likely little experience developing technology.

I completely understand your point here, but if they aren't willing to release these things (yes, I said "willing" because it's not a case of "it doesn't exist"- we HAVE seen the email client), then they shouldn't have released the PlayBook to begin with.

And in the grand scheme of things, it's not only about the features we want from RIM. We also want 3rd party apps too!

[TBone4eva]

Well, Its a bad equation. A bank or car loan, you sign a promissory note to repay a debt. A paternal bond is instinctual, based on millions of years of evolution. Neither has anything to do with a CEO telling you what he thought the current roll out schedule was.

And you've now been heard. Happy? Has anything changed? Did you get it all out?

[312]

Well, Its a bad equation. A bank or car loan, you sign a promissory note to repay a debt. A paternal bond is instinctual, based on millions of years of evolution. Neither has anything to do with a CEO telling you what he thought the current roll out schedule was.

And you've now been heard. Happy? Has anything changed? Did you get it all out?

You sound angry...like a CEO of a failing company with no friends. I could be wrong, but I don't think you're a very social person and a message board like this is probably not the best site for you to waste your time. I wonder...do you even own a PlayBook?

[TBone4eva]

Pre-ordered it from Staples. I'm using it right now to type. I use it everyday. Making the best of the situation. You should try doing that sometime.

[312]

Pre-ordered it from Staples. I'm using it right now to type. I use it everyday. Making the best of the situation. You should try doing that sometime.

Well that's great, I'm glad you're happy with it. To be honest, I'm happy with mine too. Playing Tetris and using Twitter has never been so exciting for me. But, I still expect everything that was promised (verbally or visually or however you want to put it) and it's my God given right as an American to bitch and moan about it whenever and however I want.

[Cozmik]

RIM made a lot of promises as far as I'm concerned with regards to the PlayBook. The promises started in September with the first videos of the PB, and continued on until release. There are numerous videos on YouTube posted by RIM and other tech bloggers USING PlayBooks and doing some really cool things with them. Watching these videos I couldn't wait to get mine. I was vibrating with anticipation in the weeks that led up to April 19th.

Then it launched. I will admit I was underwhelmed. Then the promises of things to come started via Jim B. I feel that I was fortunate to have returned mine within the allotted return window.

'This summer' and 'I believe within 60 days' are open ended 'promises' that RIM has yet to deliver on, and I have little faith that they will follow through. In regards to the 60 days for native email, it's been 90 days today and there is NOTHING being said by RIM anymore as to what is going on. They have now apparently adopted a 'zip it tight' policy with regards to information about the PB, and many other things as well.

Anyway, I hope they can turn this around and become the once powerful tech company they were, but if they stay on their current course it's not looking too promising.

[sportline]

who do you want to talk to at RIM? the senior product manager just quit.
In June we reported that Brian Wallace, RIM’s vice president of digital marketing and media, left the BlackBerry maker for greener pastures at Samsung. Now Samsung has poached another RIM exec, and this time it’s the BlackBerry PlayBook senior product manager Ryan Bidan. According to CrackBerry, Bidan recently updated his Twitter and LinkedIn profiles to reflect that he will soon serve as Samsung’s director of product marketing.

[crackruckles]

But this is what gets me annoyed, people complain when rim releases half baked updates such as the latest bridge update and then they complain that they aren't release enough updates with features that we all expected. Personally i dont mind waiting for features that my phone can do i mean after all that's why i have a phone and i mean i have said it before and ill say it again you have to give rim some credit they are no way the biggest player and they dont have the resources to pump out all the features we want at the quality that we have come to expect as fast as company's like apple and Google who happen to be two of the largest tech company in the world. So i say keep up the good work Rim i look forward to the PIM and android player updates but until then im just going to keep using my playbook as my laptop at uni, my media player at home, my gaming machine on the train to uni, my web browser while i watch tv etc etc.

well that's my rant for the day over

[hooper]

who do you want to talk to at RIM? the senior product manager just quit.
In June we reported that Brian Wallace, RIM�s vice president of digital marketing and media, left the BlackBerry maker for greener pastures at Samsung. Now Samsung has poached another RIM exec, and this time it�s the BlackBerry PlayBook senior product manager Ryan Bidan. According to CrackBerry, Bidan recently updated his Twitter and LinkedIn profiles to reflect that he will soon serve as Samsung�s director of product marketing.

Bidan was not a senior exec or any kind of exec for that matter. A senior exec at RIM is a Director or a VP. He was a product manager working on BlackBerry accessories.

People want to see change at RIM. This might just be some of that streamlining in action....

[Maiev]

RIM just got priorities wrong. They want to launch to international markets, so instead of coding essential stuff, they are focusing on translating and localization. But its disappointing to wait for a full month only for them to upgrade a few things.

[kb5zht]

RIM just got priorities wrong. They want to launch to international markets, so instead of coding essential stuff, they are focusing on translating and localization. But its disappointing to wait for a full month only for them to upgrade a few things.

That is the scenario I am afraid we are facing.

Its easy to see, really, when you consider that ole Jim and Mike are on the ropes with the share holders. Have you noticed how that is something the rim zombies dont argue, because the embarassing plunge in stock price is a fact like gravity? But i digress.

Rim needs to start increasing sales and fast. Never before have you seen those two jokes do a 180 and say they are accelerating new phone releases, for example. The old rim business model was to wait as long as possible for customers to buy up the inventory; Well, in the past, that worked. Now customers have choices and are bailing in droves for Droid, Iphone, etc.

As for the playbook, they know (but lied and said they didnt) how sales are going, and i think once again they are changeing te game plan and gearing up for sales over sees. That means focus on improving features of the playbook is sacrificed. This last update, before pulled, had minor changes and 15 languages added. Right out of the gate we got two big additions; bbm and video chat.

After that, after 90 days roughly, we have received zero new major additions. Look at the patterns and its obvious what is happening. Sad to say but they have our money and are for the time being forsaking thier existing customers and trying to get new ones- and therefore increase sales- by going oversees.

That is why bbm isnt finished, that is why they couldnt get native email when Jim said they would, that is why you have a device that still has a 5 minute timout limit and no autocorrect, etc.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[lawguyman]

RIM just got priorities wrong. They want to launch to international markets, so instead of coding essential stuff, they are focusing on translating and localization. But its disappointing to wait for a full month only for them to upgrade a few things.

RIM is a big company. The people who are working on the language stuff are not the people who are working on the blackberry player (necessary for email) or the android player. There are different teams working on these different things.

I guess I am already resigned that the good stuff won't be released until at least September. So, I am not disappointed by 1.0.7. I am not having problems like others, except for WiFi file sharing, which I don't use too often (but I do use it so I want it fixed). I have noticed small improvements in 1.0.7 over 1.0.6 and I am glad that these improvements are being made.

It seems like the improved Demo Mode and the Demo-related materials that are now available in App World are the key things in this release even though they don't matter to us because we already own the thing. I am guessing that RIM's retail partners lilke Best Buy asked for this. RIM has to sell lots of Playbooks for the Platform to be successful. As owners, we have an interest in that happening.

I think that we will see the Android player coming because RIM will have to reach out to Android developers to get content. Also, I think that when things start to firm up on the e-mail front that RIM will say something. RIM knows how important email is. I interpret the fact that RIM has said nothing about email to be a sign that it is not really close to ready yet.

The fact that 1.0.7 has issues is not evidence to me of anything or at least not much. Every company releases patches that have issues. I wonder how this happens since the variables in the Playbook platform are far fewer than they are on a PC.

Ryan Bidan was kind of the face of Playbook so this looks bad for the Platform. Still, with any employment decision, you have to wonder what is really going on. It seemed to me that Ryan was doing a good job, but not much has been seen of him since release. It is as if he has been muzzled since launch. So, who really knows? He may be taking the fall for a bungled launch. We have no way of knowing if this is true or whether he is responsible for some of the decisions that led the bad launch. Maybe he pushed for an early release while others said things would not be ready? We can never really know.